divided into several groups as follows. Group 1 which insists on the absolute obligation to exploit; group 2 where the legislation imposes a moderate obligation to exploit; group 3 compelling obligation to exploit sanctioned by forfeiture or the obligation to grant licenses; group 4, obligation to exploit in the country only if the patentee has exploited in other countries; group 5, the United States, requires no obligation to exploit. The article from which this is abstracted gives in this connection a long table of the patent legislation requirement in the several countries. The need for another Conference is quite apparent from the lack of uniformity on the point of exploitation as stated in this paragraph.

CURRENT COURT DECISIONS.

VAPOR CAR HEATING CO. et al. v. GOLD CAR HEATING & LIGHTING CO. Dist Ct. S. D. New York. Learned Hand, Dist. J. 296 Fed. 188.

Gold patent 758,436 for steam heating system for railway cars claims 10, 11, 12, held void for anticipation and lack of invention.

Gold patent 768,019 for the same, held infringed.

Gold patent 944,187 for the same, claims 12 and 20 heid not infringed.

Gold reissue patent 13,059 for the same 17 and 21 held void for double patenting; claims 1, 6, 7, held valid and infringed; and claims 18 and 19, void as not for the same invention as the original patent.

Gold patent 925,896 for the same, claim 5 held invalid and claim 8 not infringed.

Infringement.-Different construction but utilizing same principle.-Pressure regulator system. Gold patent 769,019 was for a steam heating system distinguished by having the exhaust steam pass thru pipes which are exposed to air before it reaches the thermostatic valve which regulates the pressure in the system. This was not anticipated and the defense was inutility. The de

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fendant's construction consisted of two concentric pipes, the inner one being a pressure drip, and the outer one, which was exposed to the air, was a vapor exhaust, Held, infringing.

The court stated that the defense of inutility cannot be successfully raised where there is infringement.

The other patents passed upon by the court do not involve any unusually vexed questions. An excerpt from the opinion, comments on the disposition of inventors who improve existing structures to attempt to cover up not only their own contributions but also the unimproved structures.

The late comer usually invents the simpler device, which succeeds; but his invention should rest upon the improvements he has contributed. Having chosen to assert the broad monopoly, he necessarily ventures to cover all kinds of designs and of thermostats, including those which did not operate to their maximum at a critical point. If these do not operate well in such situation

* the fault applies equally to the claim, and cannot make a valid monopoly in broad terms merely because one illustration has turned out to be a solution. Commercial success is valid evidence of invention, but nothing is more hazardous in application. A vaguely benevolent attitude towards all machines which have gone into use have not infrequently been the source of imposing upon the art a broad monopoly to which the invention was never entitled."

Laches-Delay of 52 years in suing. There were no surrounding circumstances showing bad faith in the plaintiff such as acquiescence in the infringement. The suit was brought after 51⁄2 years but within the period allowed by the statute. Held, no laches.

On rehearing there was no change in the court's holding. M. C. R.

AMERICAN CONE & WAFER CO. et al. v. DENARO. C. C. A. 1. Johnson, Cir. J. 297 Fed. 913.

Bruckman patent 1,071,027, claims 66 and 67, for

machine for making ice cream cones, held valid and infringed.

Analogous Art.-Glass Molding and Ice Cream Cone Baking. Previous to Bruckman, ice cream cones had been made by baking them in mold cavities, from which it was necessary to remove them by hand. This work was not only hot and difficult, but was carried out under conditions which were more or less unsanitary, and when, sugar was used to sweeten them, the adherence to the mold surfaces was so great that their removal was accomplished with difficulty. Bruckman's very ingenious device consisted of a rotatable wheel on which molds, made in two sections, were mounted, and to which the batter was transferred automatically. The molds were then locked and heat applied. After baking, the core, which had been locked in the molds, was slightly raised in the molds, to extract it from the cones, the molds unlocked and its sides separated, the core serving as a finger to strip the cone from the sides of the molds to which it was likely to adhere. The District Court held that the Brookfield and Stivers patent 835,235, anticipated the patent in suit but the Circuit Court held that glass blowing is a nonanalogous art. The molten glass which is introduced into the mold is not heated but it assumes the form of the mold when it cools. It does not expand, as does the batter nor does it stick to the molds as does the baked cone.

Rule of Comity. The Brookfield and Stivers patent was considered by Judge Van Valkenburgh in Bruckman et al. v. Stephens et al. (D. C.) 268 Fed. 374, who found it was distinctly in another art, and that it did not anticipate the Bruckman patent. His opinion is cited with approval by the Circut Court of Appeals in Roberts Cone Mfg. Co. v. Bruckman, 266 Fed. 986. In both of these cases, the court had before it the history of the patent, its file wrapper, and considered the prior art. The rule of comity is not one of courtesy only, but has been established for the very practical and useful pur

pose of producing uniformity of decisions, where the records are substantially the same, as is the case here, and should not be departed from, except for sound and convincing reasons.

RACINE CONFECTIONER'S MACHINERY CO. v.
METRO CHOCOLATE CO. D. C.
D. C. E. D. N. Y.
Campbell, Dist. J. 297 Fed. 635.

Woolf patent 971,097 for first lollypop manufacturing machine held not a pioneer patent and there. fore not infringed by a different but similarly applied machine.

Invention. Pioneer Patent.-Effect of Argument During Prosecution Before the Patent Office.-Candy Making Machine. The broadest of the four claims sued on, claim 1, is as follows (with reference characters inserted)

frame, one (25) of said rolls being provided with mold cavities (41) and a groove (42) for each of said mold cavities, means for delivering sticks one by one into said grooves, means (55, 56, 57, 58) for advancing said rolls with a step-by-step movement, and means (63, 68) adapted to thrust the sticks into the material contained within the mold cavities.

Prior to the patent lollypops had been made by hand and for this reason the plaintiff contended that he was entitled to the benefits ordinarily accorded a pioneer patentee, that is a vast range of equivalents. In his description of the invention the patentee did not limit himself to candy making but asserted that his invention was to be understood as applying to any operation involving the combining of tablets of material with sticks, skewers or pins. By this "shot gun" statement the analogy of other related arts was constructively admitted. Several patents for making soap, pills, briquets and candy were before the court in which all the separate features of the patented structure were shown to be old. The closest references disclosed the making of celluloid covered pins by pin like cores which were progressively fed by a grooved drum from a hopper to U-shaped strips of plastic celluloid held between movable jaws tamped therein and the jaws closed to completely cover the pin and shear off the excess material. Another pertinent patent described the making of pralines by forcing the material from a hopper into circular openings in a drum which included cam-actuated plunger heads that formed the bottom of the openings, the plungers ejecting the masses when at the lowermost position of the drum. Provision is made for carrying away the ejected bodies by a conveyor having upturned hooks, the free ends of which simultaneously engage the filled openings at the time of ejection and catch the pralines as they are shoved out. No anticipatory patent for the claimed structure was revealed by the prior art. In arguments presented during the solicitation of the patent stress was laid upon